Dogs: face to face with my worst enemy

This article titled “Dogs: face to face with my worst enemy” was written by Sarfraz Manzoor, for The Guardian on Sunday 8th August 2010 19.59 UTC

I don’t like dogs. I find them frightening and unpredictable; I don’t like their panting, drooling ways and I feel uncomfortable not being able to tell which dog is friendly and which wants to chew off my arm. I prefer species that appreciate amusing word play and the concept of irony. But in Britain, to be a dog-hater is to admit to an unforgivable perversion. There is no socially acceptable way, I have learned, to recoil in horror when someone tries to plonk their pooch on to my lap. And now, on top of all that, I find myself living with a woman who has a very different attitude to dogs – she adores them – and she has a dream that one day the Manzoor household could include the pitter-patter of doggy paws. I love my girlfriend, but can I also learn to love dogs?

A walk in the park, for the dog fearer, is no walk in the park. I am in Clissold park in north London. In almost every way it is a perfect day – a pleasant, warm morning, the last few clouds scooting across a bright blue sky – but as usual my reverie is shattered by the sight of dogs charging across the park. They scamper and dart, followed by owners hurling moist wooden sticks. Waiting to meet me in the park’s cafe is Louise Glazebrook, a dog behaviourist who runs the Darling Dogs company. “Dog anxiety can be something that is transmitted down from parents to children,” she tells me. I am not listening as my attention is on the giant Bernese mountain dog that is dawdling past us. Once it has safely slipped away I start listening again. “Sometimes it can be one particular thing that triggers a fear of dogs,” Glazebrook says, “like teeth or saliva or the dog’s mouth, so I want you to think about why exactly you don’t like dogs.”

When I was at school, I associated dogs with skinheads

Well, it started in childhood. Growing up in a Muslim household, I was told dogs were dirty – their saliva was unclean and the angels would not visit any house with a dog for that reason. When I saw any on the streets, I either froze with fear or ran in terror. When I was at school in the 80s, I associated dogs with skinheads; round where we lived, the racists delighted in unleashing their alsatians whenever they saw brown-skinned boys like me. Dogs may have been man’s best friend, but they were an Asian’s worst enemy.

Twenty-five years on and dogs can still provoke extreme reactions. “The worst reaction is from Hassidic Jews and African Muslim women,” says Glazebrook. “Walking with a bulldog, it sometimes feels like I am waving a knife around. One time I saw three teachers swoop and push 20 Asian school children up against a wall while they waited for Cookie – who was on a lead and ignoring the fracas – walk past them.”

“I can see why you’d think that was an over-reaction,” I say, while secretly thinking I would also have been flat against the wall with the terrified children. “So what can I do to try to beat my dog anxiety?” I ask.

“Tomorrow I am going to introduce you to Cookie, my English bulldog, who I think can help you,” she says. “But before that, there is somewhere I want you to go.”

The No 344 bus deposits me outside Battersea Dogs & Cats Home and I follow the red paw prints to the reception, where Lisa is waiting to meet me. She has agreed to show me round and introduce me to some of its inhabitants.

It takes an average of four weeks for a dog to be re-homed and almost half of the 350 dogs at Battersea are staffordshire bull terriers. Lisa gamely tries to assure me these dogs are not brutal beasts, but I am not convinced. As I walk along the corridor they look amiable enough with tails wagging, and their sad eyes do break my heart ever so slightly. But this sadness could simply be because they have calculated the nutritional value of tucking into my lower arm and decided it’s not worth the effort. Phil Collins’s Against All Odds is being piped into the kennels. “Haven’t these poor mutts suffered enough?” I ask Lisa.

She suggests I step into a kennel to meet Fuji, a staffordshire bull terrier. I notice a half-chewed tennis ball lying on the floor and politely decline. The longer I spend walking around the kennels, the more agitated I become. When the dogs are quiet it is not so bad, but when the corridors ring with an infernal chorus of barking I reach for the exit, relieved there are metal bars between me and the dogs.

‘Never look a dog straight in the eyes’

The following day, I’m in Springfield park in north-east London. Tennis players gently lob balls, joggers stretch their legs, rowers glide along the river Lea. I am here to meet Bobby, a professional dog walker who is coming with 14 dogs. He arrives in a fire engine-red Astra estate and out they spill: labradors and rottweilers, Tibetan terriers and west highland terriers, staffordshire bull terriers and Jack Russells all heading towards the grassland, where Bobby releases them to scamper free. This is the moment I had feared, but the dogs are all very well-behaved; I had been expecting them to prowl and poke around me, but they mostly happily play in the grass. It feels peaceful, but I am still tense, as if caught in a minefield.

“With dogs, making direct eye contact is seen as a challenge,” says Bobby, “so never look a dog straight in the eyes.” This sounds like advice that could be employed more generally for anyone living in Hackney. I watch the dogs and, occasionally, one of them sidles up to me and has a sniff. “You’re doing great,” says Bobby. “Do you think you’d like to groom my rottweiler Ronnie?” I’ve had better offers, but I reluctantly agree. I take the brush and cautiously start rubbing the dog’s back. I can feel the rippled muscles under the skin as I slide the brush down his coat. This is the closest I have ever been to a dog, but Bobby wants more: “I think you should have a go at walking the dogs.”

I take the leads and loop them into my hand. The power of the dogs as they begin moving makes it feel like they are taking me for a walk, not the other way round. It seems as if I am being dragged along the park, a waterless version of jet-skiing, slightly scary and very thrilling. “Are there any Muslim dog-walkers?” I ask Bobby. “None I know of,” he says. “Do you know any Muslims who own dogs?” He doesn’t, but that doesn’t surprise me. Mainstream Islamic thought is not keen on dogs, hence the recent reports in certain rabid sections of the press about Muslim bus drivers refusing to allow guide dogs on board their vehicles. As it happens, guide dogs have even been allowed into mosques, but it is true that some of the stories from the time of the Prophet Muhammad suggest that dogs are unclean.

When one woman I speak to converted to Islam four years ago, she found the issue of dogs very difficult to reconcile with her new faith. “I have two dogs and I could not understand how Muslims don’t get the dog thing,” she says. “I think there is much significance in God being ‘dog’ backwards – dogs have a lot to teach us about loyalty and unconditional love. A strong relationship with a dog is a truly profound experience.”

Cookie starts looking almost benign

The next day, my last in Dogland. It is time to meet Cookie. She is a three-year-old English bulldog, white as flour with large, fleshy jowls and wearing a union flag collar. In the past, Cookie would have made me shiver with terror, but as my last challenge I will be taking her for a walk.

Glazebrook explains the correct way to approach a dog. “Don’t put your hand on top of their head,” she says. “That way they can’t see it. Be less threatening and stroke them under the chin.” She asks how the last few days have been. “I’ve realised that one of the reasons I hated dogs is that I am scared of them,” I tell her, an argument that is somewhat undermined by the sound of Cookie snoring loudly in the corner. “I worry they may leap up and start attacking,” I continue as Cookie wakes up, rolls on her back and starts waggling her legs in the airs, trying to scratch her back.

Glazebrook straps a lead on to Cookie and we head out towards the street. It feels a little uneasy at first, but slowly I learn to control the lead and then something strange happens – Cookie stops looking frightening and begins to appear almost benign. I start to think her wrinkly face is rather attractive and I admire how patient she has been with the quivering wreck who has been taking her for a walk. When it is time for photographs, I find that stroking her back and scratching the back of her neck does not feel quite as scary as I had expected.

The walk is over and I say goodbye to Cookie and Glazebrook. My time in the world of the dog-lover is at an end. I feel I understand dogs better and now realise that my antipathy towards them was rooted mostly in unfamiliarity, which led to fear. In believing the media scare-stories about dangerous dogs and stereotyping all dogs as potential killers, I had done to dogs what the rabid rightwing press does to Muslims.

When I return home I tell my girlfriend that I have spent the last two days grooming rottweilers, taking eight dogs for a walk and bonding with a bulldog. “So does that mean we may, one day, be able to get a dog?” she asks, her face filled with expectation. “Maybe,” I reply.

• This article was amended on 9 August 2010. The original referred to a Burmese mountain dog. This has been corrected.

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